Four and a Half Years Earlier…

Joe sat on the edge of his bed and stared into the open maw of their wardrobe. His wardrobe now. His. Because Sofia had removed all her clothes and enormous collection of shoes, and left his few shirts and pants and wedding-cum-funeral gray suit that took up less than a quarter of the space.

Except for the clear plastic garment bag at the far end of the wardrobe that contained Sofia’s wedding dress. The only thing she’d left behind. She’d taken her engagement ring, likely because she could pawn it off for cash. He never wanted it back anyhow, not after he’d seen how easy it’d been for her to slip it off her finger.

His eyes stung as he continued to stare at the dress, his vision blurred by the nonstop rewind-replay of the video in his head. Sofia had planned to cheat on him. Sofia had cheated on him before, of that he was almost certain.

Joe marched over to the wardrobe and hauled out the garment bag. Feck it—no more sitting around. He needed to do something. He caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror. Red-rimmed eyes, five days’ growth on his jaw, teeth bared in a rictus grin. He looked wrecked. He felt wrecked, like seaweed flung onto a beach after a storm. And then pissed on by a passing dog.

Turning on his heel, Joe stalked out of the house and tossed the garment bag into his car.

Fifteen minutes later, he flung open the door to Invercargill Bridal. The bell above tinkled as his glance whiplashed around the room. It was empty.

“Be right with you.”

Joe recognized the woman’s voice coming from behind the archway. MacKenna, that was her name. MacKenna Jones. He hadn’t paid her much mind during the one and only brief meeting they’d had. In passing he’d thought her attractive in a girl-next-door way but definitely not his type. Joe gritted his teeth. No, his type was a woman who so bedazzled him with her beauty and fake adoration that he couldn’t tell his arse from his elbow.

The click of heels sounded, and MacKenna stepped around the arch. “Sorry about that, I—”

She stopped so fast her upper body swayed forward, her eyes widening as they locked on to him. “Oh.”

Her gaze zipped down to the garment bag draped over his arm.

“Dr. Whelan.”

He made a slow, deliberate one-eighty, and flipped over sign in the window so the “Closed” side face outward. He turned back to see MacKenna’s jaw had sagged.

Whatever she saw on his face as they continued to eyeball each other had her shuffling half a step back, her hand bunching into a fist against the side of the archway. If she’d been a bank teller, he imagined she would’ve hit the silent alarm.

“I’m not threatening you. I want to talk without interruption, and it won’t take much of your time.”

“Ohhh-kay,” she said.

Her throat worked as she edged out of the archway and scuttled to safety behind a display cabinet of glittery bridal things. He didn’t care to examine the glittery things to decipher their purpose, so he tossed the garment bag on top of it.

“I’m returning this.”

She winced, swallowing hard. “Of course. I’ll issue a full refund. It’s the—” Her voice cracked, and she pressed her lips together. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Is that your normal business practice when a man returns his unfaithful fiancée’s wedding dress? A refund?”

Spots of color appeared high on her pale cheekbones. “I haven’t encountered a situation like this before since I only took over the store six months ago, but I’m prepared to refund your money just the same.”

He’d gone over a couple of different scenarios in his mind on the way there. Having her refuse to take the dress back was the most likely one. After all, with the cost of materials and the hours she’d spent making the damn thing, why would she—let alone any new business—voluntarily suffer a two-thousand-dollar loss? He’d imagined a satisfying exchange of heated words, a vent to the frustration he’d been otherwise unable to express. He hadn’t expected her to cave like a cheap suitcase and look at him with big, woeful green eyes.

“I don’t want a refund. Keep the dress, do whatever you please with it—throw it on a bonfire next Guy Fawkes Night—I don’t care. I just wanted it out of my house.”

Her mouth puckered. “I’m not going to burn it.”

“Use it for rags, then. Turn it into a feckin’ doily.” He braced his palms either side of the garment bag and leaned in. Yep, he was acting the arsehole, but his blood had riled being back in this shop. Back with the only other woman who knew too well what a fool Sofia had made of him. “I. Don’t. Care.”

“You do care,” she said. “The hurt’s written all over you.”

“And you can tell how gutted I am from knowin’ me all of five minutes?”

“I saw the way you looked at her.” Her eyes softened, and her shoulders drooped. “You loved her, and she betrayed the promise she made to you. It’s only normal to feel—”

“Don’t you dare tell me how I feel. Don’t you dare offer me your bloody condolences. Just tell me why you did it.”

She told him. About overhearing Sofia’s phone conversation during her final fitting. About making the decision to spy on Sofia with her friends and how Mac knew she’d need proof before he’d believe Sofia was unfaithful. About giving Sofia an ultimatum, and how when it didn’t look as if Sofia would leave, Mac had sent them both the video footage.

MacKenna’s small fists were wrapped around the garment bag’s coat hanger by the time she’d finished. His mouth dry, his heart slamming over and over like a door caught in the wind, Joe met her gaze.

“Those are the events as you see them, but I want to know why you thought you had the right to interfere in my life.”

“I had no right. But I was worried, so I did what needed to be done.” MacKenna blinked her long, dark lashes. “Isn’t it less painful to be left at the altar than suffer a marriage built on lies?”

“Not quite a correct analogy since we didn’t quite make it that far—” His jaw hardened to concrete, and he leaned in even closer until they were nearly nose to nose. “You’d need to ask Richard Woodley on a scale of one to ten how much less painful it is to be dumped on your wedding day, now, wouldn’t you?”

The color blanched from MacKenna’s face, and she jerked backward as if static electricity had zapped between them.

“How do you know about Richard?” she asked.

“A research scientist isn’t the only one who knows how to research. I found an archived copy of a marriage announcement in a local rag with Google. A bit of digging among some of my gossipy older patients revealed how the bride did a bunk on her wedding day, and that less than three months later, her broken hearted groom moved to Christchurch with another girl. Guess you weren’t quite the catch you thought you were.”

MacKenna folded her arms, her eyes narrowing to long-lashed slits. “You Googled me?”

Her indignation was the last straw. “Yes, you conniving little bitch. I figured out exactly why you did what you did. Don’t try to fool me with some bullshit about not wanting me to be hurt. You were jealous of the way I felt about Sofia—couldn’t stand that someone could love her that much and not you. No, you didn’t break Richard’s heart by leaving him at the altar. The man dodged a fuckin’ bullet when you stood him up.”

“You think I was jealous? That I wanted you for myself?”

“Either that or you’re a cold-blooded sociopath.”

“The only thing I want is for you to leave,” MacKenna said. “Get out, and take the dress with you, before I throw you out on your ass myself.”

An empty threat and she knew it. But he’d said his piece now, and his shoulders were lighter for it. So without another glance at MacKenna Jones, Joe turned and walked out the door.

Without the feckin’ dress.